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October 20th - October 26th, 2025

📋 TLDR

📰 TCG News: China’s upcoming Arcane Truth set introduces a potentially Chinese-exclusive Iron Hands ex ⚡, while Pokémon TCG Pocket surpasses 150 million downloads and sparks speculation about a future physical crossover.

🔢 Card Market Highlights: Luigi Pikachu box sells for just $4.9k, PSA 10 Blaziken FB Lv.X hits $5.5k, and a Neo Discovery 1st Edition Umbreon sells $20k.

😴 Potential Sleepers: Vivid Voltage Celebi Amazing Rare - Potential renewed interest in the limited “A-rarity” line.

🏆 Card of the Week: Hypno (The Town on No Map / Aquapolis) - a cool and relatively unknown classic depicting Dream Eater in action.

📰 TCG News & Info

Note: Not all news may be directly TCG related

🔵 China’s next S&V set introduces potentially exclusive Iron Hands ex

The Simplified Chinese compilation set Arcane Truth is slated for release on November 7, 2025 in mainland China. It’s essentially a catch-up set, pulling in cards from previous English-language sets such as Obsidian Flames (2023) and Paradox Rift (also 2023) so that the Chinese market can experience some of the Scarlet & Violet era content. On top of those reprints, there are exclusive additions including a brand-new Special Illustration Rare (SIR) version of Iron Hands ex that appears to be a Chinese exclusive as of now.

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🔵 Pokemon cards become the next target of NFT crypto market

Collector Crypt, a blockchain-based trading platform, has reportedly facilitated over $150 million in randomized Pokémon card swaps as its native CARDS token surged more than 200% this month. The platform allows users to stake and trade tokenized representations of real Pokémon cards in blind “mystery pack”–style transactions, combining elements of traditional collecting with decentralized finance mechanics. This mix of speculation and gamified trading has attracted a surge of users, driving up on-chain activity and liquidity.

Source: The Block

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🔵 Pokémon TCG Pocket Surpasses 150 Million Downloads - Could digital cards release as a printed set?

The mobile app Pokémon TCG Pocket has now surpassed 150 million downloads globally since its launch in October 2024, marking a remarkable achievement in under a year. Given the platform’s reach and its ability to spotlight new and unique card designs, it also seems like an ideal testing ground for creative card design and collector appeal. This naturally raises the question of whether a very limited app-exclusive set could someday make the jump to physical cards like Pokemon Go (although Pokemon Go is not a trading card app).

Source: Pokemon

🏆 Card of the Week

Hypno

Japanese The Town on No Map #42

English Aquapolis #H12

This week’s card is Hypno from Japanese Town on No Map (one of my favorite sets) and English Aquapolis. This is one of my favorite cards of all time for its clear and unique depiction of a Pokemon using a signature move. In this case it's Hypno using its signature Dream Eater move which only deals damage on sleeping targets and heals the user by restoring HP equal to half of the damage dealt.

This is also a really interesting interpretation of how Hypno is typically represented in the Pokemon universe, sneakily snacking on the dreams of unsuspecting sleeping town residents. This card was drawn by Mitshuro Arita who among many, many cards is well known for drawing the Charizard card from the base set of Pokemon.

🔢 Card Market Highlights

📦 Sealed Product Market Highlights

🔵 Luigi Pikachu Box sells for $4.9k

Listing

Luigi Pikachu boxes have been routinely selling in the $8k-$10k range for the past few months now. What’s interesting about sales like this besides the fact that it’s a massive outlier for the sales history (and a great deal for the buyer assuming it’s legit and the seller doesn’t back out), is that it could be an indication of a correction or an inflection point in the market which has been booming since the start of this year.

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🔵 Lot of 730 packs of Surging Sparks sells for $4.3k

Listing

Packs of Surging Sparks currently go for about $7-$8 so this lot sale puts packs at around $5.89 which is a pretty decent bargain. Big lot purchases like this especially at this quantity is typical for social media content creators who livestream the openings of packs. Otherwise, Surging Sparks is still pretty underrated as a set with Surging Sparks going for about $250 so it’s possible that it starts to pick back up again pretty soon as all sets inevitably do.
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🔵 Ancient Origins Booster box sells for $5.8k

Listing

Ancient Origins went through some major spikes and dips this year and in a really short span of time. In June/July, booster boxes hovered around $3k-$4k in May and steadily spiking as high as $8.5k in September before slowly trending down to around the $5.5k mark in October within a few sales. This bell curve price movement seems somewhat irregular for a higher end booster box, yet there are enough sales to back up the price trend. To that effect, even some “buy it now” listings have come down a bit from the $8k peak (the legit listings anyway). The top chases of Ancient Origins are the Gyarados Cosmos Holo #21 (~$7.5k PSA 10) and the M Rayquaza EX #98 (~$6k PSA 10).

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💎 Singles & Graded Cards Highlights

🔵 Yu Nagaba Eevelutions set sells for $750

Listing

Just a couple months ago, this complete set in a PSA 10 was going for about $1k and now raw prices are slowly starting to catch up. In the past couple of weeks PSA 10 sets are going for $1.5k-$2k with some outlier sales above and below that range. The Yu Nagaba set is still underrated with regards to the fact that it is a Japanese promo, features incredibly unique art by a well known Japanese artist (as a part of a collaboration with Pokemon), and features the very popular Eevelutions as well. Although somewhat overlooked, the Pikachu card from this collab is definitely worth including as well.

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🔵 PSA 10 Summer Campaign Jolteon sells for $5.6k

Listing

The Jolteon VMAX #188/S-P Japanese promo was released in the 2021 “Summer Pokémon Card Campaign” as one of three full-art alternate Eeveelution VMAX promos awarded through a limited prize lottery. 3,000 winners received a three-card set (Flareon VMAX 186/S-P, Vaporeon VMAX 187/S-P, Jolteon VMAX 188/S-P) by submitting a play log via the Pokémon Card Game Players Club between July 21 and September 30. I wrote about the Vaporeon card in the September 15th report which at the time sold for close to $5.5k.

Of the three Vaporeon seems to be the most popular but Jolteon has seen a couple significant jumps. A PSA 10 copy of this card sold for $4.1k at the end of August.

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🔵 PSA 10 Blaziken FB Lv.X sells for $5.5k

Listing

Platinum Supreme Victors from which this Blaziken card comes from was released in 2009 and focuses on the Platinum Era. On the graded side, There are only a total of 1831 cards graded in a 10 across the whole set. It’s seemingly for this reason that not only the set but the top chases are considerably high priced. Graded price data for this Blaziken is extremely limited but the ungraded card goes for about $50 in good condition.

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🕰️ Vintage & Niche Market Highlights

🔵 Neo Discovery 1st Edition Umbreon sells for $20k

Listing

Typically considered to be the first Moonbreon, this card has seen insane growth this year. There are only 103 graded in a 10 and as such sales aren’t too frequent. Since the start of the year there have been 10 sales almost every 1-2 months ranging from $7.5k on the low-end all the way up to $20k with this most recent sale.

The price of vintage cards tends to correct less often than modern cards because of the long sales history so while this could be an actual price trend that continues it could be argued that such rapid growth is unsustainable.

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🔵 PSA 10 Topps Chrome Sparkling Articuno sells for $3.15k

Listing

The Topps Chrome Sparkling Articuno was part of the 1999 Topps Chrome Pokémon Series 1 set, which reprinted artwork from the original Topps TV Animation series on chromium card stock. The Sparkling parallel was the rarest variant, featuring a refractive, glitter-like finish distinct from the standard and Spectra Chrome versions. Alongside Zapdos and Moltres, Articuno was one of the three Legendary Birds included in the Sparkling subset. There are only 8 in a PSA 10 so it was difficult to find any other price data. However, a copy of the Moltres in a PSA 10 (pop 19) sold for $9.75k in June.

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🔵 Neo Destiny 2 pack blister sells for $2.2k

Listing

Packs of Neo Destiny typically go for around $700-$800. There are many variations of these blisters especially for vintage sets and they typically carry a slight premium because they are simply another variation of a sealed product. Sealed products are generally always more expensive when compared to a single pack (compared against dividing the cost of a sealed box by number of packs in a box). The top chases of Neo Destiny are the Shining cards and in particular the 1st/non 1st edition Shining Charizard (around $21k in a PSA 10).

😴 Potential Sleepers

Vivid Voltage - Celebi Amazing Rare #009

PSA 10 - 7496 pop / 12113 total - $77 average

Ungraded - $9 average for near mint condition

Amazing Rare cards are a special ultra-rare rarity type in the Pokémon TCG that feature a distinctive and colorful graphic styling that comes out of the art frame of the Pokémon as well as a unique “A” rarity icon styled in a similar fashion. What makes Amazing Rares interesting on top of their unique style, is that they were limited to Vivid Voltage and Shining Fates resulting in a set of 9 cards total of this rarity. It’s unlikely yet not clear cut as to whether or not Amazing Rare cards will make a comeback given the current trend of the TCG.

Although the Amazing Rares are not impossible to pull they have been spiking in popularity. This Celebi card in particular stands out amongst Amazing Rares. For the past few years the value has hovered around $23 (it peaked around $180 shortly after release in 2021) but has recently started trending up to its current price point at close to $80 since July. It’s difficult to attribute this to any particular event but given where it’s been over the past few years the growth comes across as relatively organic despite the current Pokemon card market boom.

📚 Educational Commentary – Collector’s Corner

Do artists impact the price of a card?

Yes quite significantly in many cases although it seems to be more of a recent trend as a result of the market boom from 2025. The illustrator of a card has increasingly become a major factor in what drives collector demand and pricing. For example, the work of Shinji Kanda has gained strong traction in the modern Pokémon-card market.

Collectors are gravitating toward his pieces because they stand out visually and carry a recognizable ‘artist brand’. That aesthetic prestige has boosted the value of cards he illustrated, even when the Pokémon depicted are less mainstream like Seismitoad #105 from Black Bolt.

What this means for you: when evaluating a card, don’t look only at rarity, set or playability. Also consider checking the illustrator. A well-known artist with consistent collector demand adds a layer of value that can potentially outlast typical short-term hype (this is by no means a hard and fast rule).

🫐 Berries For Thought

💭 What do you think about TCG Pocket app exclusive cards getting printed in a physical release?

💭 Who is your favorite artist to collect from?

Share your thoughts on the above questions by replying to this email! (I read all of them 🙂)

Note: sold listing links sometimes redirect to active listings after some time but should still be discoverable by searching for the listings manually.